There was a time a few decades ago when the teaching profession was almost as respected as the medical and legal profession. In our towns and villages a teacher’s family was revered for contributing to the education of children, most of whom came from poor families. Today the status of teachers is rather less pronounced. What has not changed is that most parents today acknowledge that without a proper education their children will struggle to find their place in society.

Every country aiming to make a good education system a hallmark of its competitive advantages tries to emulate successful systems elsewhere. Finland, Sweden, Singapore, Korea and Shanghai were at some time or other considered as having the best teaching models. Many of these countries’ systems were analysed and proposed as models for other countries, especially those like the US and the UK that understand more than many other western countries the challenge of preparing young people to the realities of the workplace.

So what are the elements that can make the teaching profession more effective and respected in society? Some educational analysts argue that teachers’ pay is not such an important element. Put simply, they maintain that paying teachers more would not make them better at imparting knowledge to their pupils.

While there is some grain of truth in this argument, I believe that in Malta teachers’ pay, like that of nurses, the police and the armed forces, is way too low to attract some of the best graduates to the profession. A secondary school teacher earns in most cases less than a bank supervisor while I consider the teacher’s responsibility as far more onerous than that of a supervisor.

But better pay should come with more accountability for delivering good quality teaching in the classroom. In most countries it is notoriously difficult to get teachers’ unions to accept performance-related pay systems that reward those who are better at teaching than others. Where annual performance assessments are in place, the exercise has often been reduced to a box-ticking routine that is at best ineffective.

The teaching profession should look at the medical profession as a model on how to prepare best-of-breed professionals

The career progression path for most teachers is a tortuous one with many aspiring to become head teachers managing a school towards the end of their career. For many good teachers this remains a mirage that rarely becomes a reality. So teachers should be motivated to outperform through bonuses that are linked to performance on a yearly basis.

Teacher training courses also need to be revised to make them more relevant to today’s workplace realities. Those who get very hot under the collar when one equates a good education with a better prospect of finding a good job live in cuckoo land. Of course, there is more to education than teaching students to become proficient in mathematics, science and English and other languages.

But as The Economist argues in a recent leading article, teacher training often involves “airy discussions of theory like ‘eco-pedagogy’ and ‘conscientisation’”. When the discussion on philosophical teaching concepts becomes more important than the best methods of imparting knowledge to students, it is time to revise our teacher training courses.

When good managers are made responsible for leading schools, one expects better dialogue between teachers, students, parents, employers and school managers. It is sad that many teachers get little respect in a command-obey style of management where they are expected to do their work in the classroom and correct assignments but not engage in formal and informal self-critical discussions with their peers and superiors on the results of their own work.

Neither is it conducive to a betterment of the teaching profession when teachers are not given opportunities to go back to the lecture rooms to learn more recent methodologies of teaching. One-day seminars on airy pedagogy subjects financed by the EU are not a substitute to effective lifelong learning programmes for all teachers.

The teaching profession should look at the medical profession as a model on how to prepare best-of-breed professionals. Tough educational requirements to join a teaching course, a lifelong interest in the latest successful teaching methodologies, progressive pay increases linked to performance, more time spent in the classroom in the training stage, better school management that encourages teachers to really participate in making their schools effective in imparting knowledge, and a better partnership between schools and employers… these are the hallmarks of a good educational system.

There is more to teaching than earning low pay but enjoying long holidays.

johncassarwhite@yahoo.com